LA-based interactive shop Zugara has always come up with some pretty decent online environments as it were and lately has been quite busy continuing in that direction. Recently, they've done some work for Reebok and the NFL. Their RBK NFL Draft site features insight and thoughts from NFL Pro Athletes on the draft itself, anticipation of being called to the podium and how their life changed once they were drafted. For Playstation, Zugara created the Syphon Filter site which allows people to take part in Playstation's Dark Mirror storyline by investigating the mysterious KenSymth corporation. After taking part in a mission, they'll be led to spoofish sites where further information can be found and investigated to unlock further missions and content on the site.

"What the fuck was all that about? Why do people in management talk shit all the time? You're in the communications business, stop talking like a fucking Power Point presentation." Those are the words of George Parker after he was leaked an internal Lowe NY email from agency head Mark Wnek who babbled on endlessly trying to rally his troops after AdWeek awarded the agency a D+ in its latest report card issue. Parker is right. The business-blather laden email could have been boiled down to a simple, "We suck. Or at least AdWeek says we suck. We've hired some new people to help get our shit together. We need to win more accounts. Please don't quit and go to another agency." Oops...looks like the defections have already begun.

Hmm. The last twotimes Lee Clow and Alex Bogusky got together, the results was mindless puffery. This third video outing, an AdCritic interview video series, actually contains some meat. Of course there was a bit of puffery from Clow who talked about advertisers being cultural artists versus ad guys and how he decorated the city of LA during the 1984 Olympics for Nike but Bogusky brought it all back to Earth. Bogusky mentioned how he had initially modeled CP+B after Clow's agency attempting to mirror Clow's success but then said "it was a really bad idea." Bogusky correctly posits the future of the ad agency business shouldn't be the result of agencies banding together to create a new, similar model because that would simply put the industry back in the same bad place. The message is be different. Do your own thing. Acknowledge and learn from the successes of other but don't copy them.

Writing on his weblog, Advertising Ourselves to Death, Todd Copelzitz celebrates the cluelessness of agency execs and media companies when it comes to understanding digital media. Copelvitz takes a look at the Pathfinder debacle - the old on and the new - and the genral cluelessness of elder creatives struggling to understand this thing called new media.

Citing an article written by Aaron Baar called Teaching As Old(er) Creative New Tricks, Copelvitz calls out some gems such as 54 year old Carmichael Lynch Chairman Jack Supple's regular meetings with his web designers (rather than just jumping into the new tech himself) to stay current with new media. From the same article, it appears 54 year old Jeff Goodby at least grasps the concept of jumping in with b oth feet saying, "I used to think you could noodle something out on a pad and have someone else execute it on a computer. But now I believe you have to understand technology just to know what's possible."

Back in February, we conveyed former Deutsch President Steve Dworin was suing Donnie Deutsch because he felt Deutsch had broken a "non-disparagement" agreement the two signed when Dwarin left Deutsch on 1994 becasue of things Deutsch wrote in he recent book, Often Wrong, Never in Doubt. Now AdWeek reports a formal document was filed yesterday in Superior Court in Union County, New Jersey suing Donnie Deutsch, Deutsch CEO Linda Sawyer and the agency for $56 million.

The suit proves to be juicy with Dworin calling Deutsch "emotionally unstable" and ego-manial," claiming Deutsch used drugs, claiming Deutsch was given the agency by his father "on a silver platter with a silver spoon," implying Deutsch was jealous of Dworin for making the agency successful, angry that Deutsch said hiring Dworin was "his biggest professional mistake" and claiming Deutsch overslept, missed meetings and shirked his responsibilities.

Commenting on GM's $10 billion loss and its subsequent employee layoffs and buyouts, Beyond Madison Avenue, while feeling GM worker's pain, tells them they have it pretty good compared to the rest of us, certainly those of us in the ad industry where a layoff consists of a couple weeks severance and an empty promise of a referral. Beyond Madison Avenue says GM workers should take the money and move on, go back to school, switch industries and be happy they have it better than us. Michael Moore would, no doubt, see it very differently.

You know, on one hand you have to respect the likes of Lee Clow and Alex Bogusky for the successes they've had and the successes they've built in the form of their agencies but, on the other hand, for some reason when these two sit in the same room with each other to discuss the definition of advertising, advertising agency and then end up trying to define the future of film while coming to no conclusions, it leaves one, well, disappointed. Granted, a three minute video segment isn't a lot of time but if these are the best nuggets the editors were able to find, it leaves one, well, disappointed. We do, however, love how the water glasses suddenly turn into wine glasses and Lee wastes no time imbibing. But, whatever. You know, you and I would give anything to be in the positions these two hold so any complaints we may have just come off as the jealous rantings of an underachieving wannabe. So we're going to pretend we didn't say anything at all about this and simply bow down at the feet of our masters.

Thirty years ago, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales founded The Prince's Trust to help change the lives of underprivileged or troubled 14-30 year olds in the UK through financial and practical support. Twenty years ago, ATTIK Co-Founder James Sommerville and his partner Simon Needham were among those granted assistance by The Prince's Trust. Last Thursday evening, at a Buckingham Palace fundraising dinner reception held for supporters of The Prince's Trust from the UK and USA, James was given the Honor of thanking Prince Charles for his support, on behalf of the 60,000+ businesses impacted by The Prince's Trust since 1976. See, now isn't that a happy advertising story?

This made the rounds last week but it just fell off our radar because, well, it doesn't really have to do with advertising except that the director of this music video for Junkie XL, Glenn Cole, is partner and creative director at LA agency agency 72andSunny and the very very persistent PR person had some influence as well.

Oh, to connect the dots even more, the PR person tells us it's a "cool ad story because the video's director Glenn Cole and Junkie XL first hooked up together in 2002, when Glenn was a CD with Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam and hired Junkie XL to remix the Elvis track 'A Little Less Conversation' for a Nike World Cup 2002 commercial. The two have remained friends and frequent collaborators ever since." It's all about who you know.

AdCritic has launched a new free feature called Face2Face, a video series that will feature ad luminaries speaking with one another. For the launch, AdCritic has placed the old and the new up against one another. Lee Clow and Alex Bogusky, two people who might have a few tidbits of insight to offer, discuss the earth shatteringly important topic of what agency people wear to work. Let's hope future episodes get to meatier topics.